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Allan Herbert "Snowshoes" Stanley - Born March 1, 1926 in Timmons, Ontario – Died October 18, 2013 in Bobcaygeon, Ontario was a Canadian professional ice Hockey defenceman.

Stanley played his minor Hockey in Timmons, Ontario. In 1943 the Timmins juvenile club won the All-Ontario finals, a showcase for professional teams looking for young talent. Sixteen-year-old Stanley was one of several members of the team invited to NHL training camps and made a trip to Boston,

During the camp he received an invitation to play for the Oshawa Generals, but when he told Boston's general manager Art Ross and coach Dit Clapper of the plan, they strenuously objected to his playing in the back yard of the rival Toronto Maple Leafs. The Canadian Hockey Association became involved and young Stanley was convinced to stay with the Bruins for an extended training camp. He was assigned to the Boston Olympics, a senior team in the Quebec Senior Hockey League.

He spent the better part of three years in Boston and was slowly rounding into a solid defensive presence. In 1946, after an earlier trade, Ross owed the Providence Reds a player and the decision came down to send Stanley to Providence.

Stanley played two seasons in Providence and his steady play came to the attention of Frank Boucher, general manager of the New York Rangers. Boucher gave the Reds $70,000 for the rights to Stanley, a large amount for an untried player, and there was a great deal of hype surrounding the young defenseman when he arrived in New York.

In 1953-54, after five full seasons with the Rangers, Stanley was sent to the minors. Boucher, who acknowledged it was the fans' ire that led to the demotion and not his play, paid Stanley a full NHL salary while he was with the Vancouver Canucks of the Western Hockey League. Stanley returned to the Rangers the next season and played 12 games before being traded to the Chicago Black Hawks.

Stanley played one full season with Chicago before he was sold to the Boston Bruins. Lynn Patrick, Boston's manager, had coached the Rangers in 1950 to a Stanley Cup final and knew Stanley's value to a team. Stanley was one of the best defensemen on the team in his first year, 1956-57. With six games left in the season, however, he landed awkwardly after a check from the Toronto Maple Leafs' Gerry James and damaged his knee, ending his season and forcing him to miss Boston's run to the finals. Bruins coach Milt Schmidt said losing Stanley was the main reason his team fell to the Montreal Canadiens in the finals.

The next season Stanley was voted the team's most valuable player when Boston returned to the championship series against the Canadiens, though once again the Montreal Canadiens would win the Stanley Cup.

Before the 1958-59 season began, Stanley was once again on the move, this time to the Toronto Maple Leafs for Jim Morrison. The Bruins felt Stanley's legs were gone and his time in the league was limited.

Stanley would prove yet another franchise wrong when he became a fixture on the Leafs' championship teams in the 1960s. He was often teamed with Tim Horton, another big veteran who knew a lot about positional play, and was a large part of the league's, and perhaps history's, best defensive unit with Carl Brewer, Bobby Baun and Marcel Provonost, and went on to spend ten years with the Toronto Maple Leafs, where he would be named one of the team's alternate captains.

Stanley acquired the nicknames "Snowshoes" and for his slow, plodding skating style, but he was a strong stay-at-home defender and an important part of the Leafs teams that won four Stanley Cups in six years in the 1960s in 1962, 1963, 1964, 1967.

Stanley would be traded one final time after the 1968 season, and finished off his career playing for the Philadelphia Flyers during the 1968–69 season.

In 1,244 NHL regular season games, he scored 100 goals, 333 assists for a total of 433 points. He had a total of 792 minutes in the penalty box.